Huang Ruo

China, 1976

Composer

Awarded First Prize by the Luxembourg International Composition Prize, Huang
Ruo has been cited by the New Yorker as “one of the world’s leading young composers” and
“one of the most intriguing of the new crop of Asian-American composers.” His vibrant and inventive
musical voice draws equal inspiration from Chinese ancient and folk music, Western avant-garde,
rock, and jazz to create a seamless, organic integration using a compositional technique he calls
“dimensionalism.” Huang Ruo’s writing spans from orchestra, chamber music,
opera, theatre, and modern dance, to sound installation, multi-media, experimental improvisation,
folk rock, and film. Ensembles who have premiered and performed his music include the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Polish National Radio Orchestra, Kiel Philharmonic Orchestra,
Hong Kong Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera,
Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera,
New York City Opera, Opera Hong Kong,
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Asko
Ensemble, Nieuw Ensemble, Quatuor Diotima,
and Ethel Quartet, and under conductors such as Wolfgang
Sawallisch, Marin Alsop, James Conlon,
Dennis Russell Davies, Ed Spanjaard, Xian Zhang, and Ilan Volkov. Huang
Ruo was born in Hainan Island, China, in 1976, the year the Chinese Cultural Revolution
ended. His father, who is a well-known composer in China, began teaching him composition and piano
when he was six years old. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, when China was steadily opening its
gates to the Western world, he received both traditional and Western education at the Shanghai
Conservatory of Music. He was admitted into its composition program, studying with Deng Erbo at the age of twelve. As a result of the dramatic cultural and economic
changes in China following the Cultural Revolution, his education expanded from Bach, Mozart, Stravinsky, and
Lutoslawski, to include the Beatles, rock and
roll, heavy metal, and jazz. Huang Ruo was able to absorb all of these
newly allowed Western influences without inhibiting factors. As a member of the new generation of
Chinese composers, he clearly knows that his goal and task is not just to mix both Western and
Eastern elements, but to go beyond that to create a seamless integration and a convincing organic
unity, drawing influences from various genres and cultures. After winning the Henry Mancini Award at the 1995 International Film and Music Festival in Switzerland,
he moved to the United States to further his education. Since then, he has earned a Bachelor of
Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts
degrees in composition from the Juilliard School. His composition teachers have included
Randolph Coleman and Samuel Adler. He is the
artistic director and conductor of Future In REverse (FIRE), and was
selected as a Young Leader Fellow by the National Committee on United States—China Relations in
2006.